East Bay Ray, who sparked the breakup of
the band when he announced he was leaving, went on to form the ill-fated (
and rightfully so) band the Kage, with female vocalist Bana Witt.
Klaus Fluoride continues to produce exciting local bands such as
Whipping Boy and Tragic Mulatto, and to release his own bizarre
solo discs, including Because I Say So. He's currently playing with
the Muskrats. Darren Peligro played guitar and sang in the
Jungle Studs, a truly exciting mix of pop, soul and punk, and is now
with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. According to Biafra, original drummer
Slesinger is now a San Francisco architect, and 6025 is working on his
goal to become the "Captain Beefheart of gospel music."

There are several collectible Dead Kennedys releases floating around.,
including a couple of bootlegs. "Skateboard Party is a bootleg... I
know the guy who put out the original pressing, and then he farmed it out to
somebody else who ran wild with it and we had to put a stop to it," says
Biafra. And what about that DKs picture disc that's being advertised
everywhere? "That's a total, total bootleg. This guy wasted our time for
doing an interview for a fanzine in England, and then pressing it as a $25
dollar picture disc. And people wonder why I'm so mean about not letting
people tape my shows now... Because I'm really sick and tired of people
making shitty recordings and then who gets the complaint letters saying
they're a crook? Me! It's another example of where greedy people wreck it for
everyone else.

"There's another bootleg, too, it's really horrible, recorded in 1980 in
Germany with a fold-out poster with an iron cross on it which was the tour
poster at the time, leading me to believe the promoter put it out. I think
it's a recording of a show in Bonn recorded on someone's walkman, which they
probably set right in front of the PA or they couldn't possibly have gotten
it to sound so bad. Usually it goes for about $30, and it may be that rare,
but there's a good reason for that. There was a second pressing on brown
vinyl that came out four years later.

Another rare Dead Kennedys item is one that was unknown until now.
"Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho... oh, he's gonna kill me for letting this out of the bag
but I can't resist: Ray was in a band called Cruisin', who made a
single; one side was called 'Vickey's Hickey,' with Sha-Na-Na type doo
wops. 'Vickey had a hickey...' I can't remember the other side of it. On
Cruisin' Records I guess; it was sold at their shows. I think they may even
still exist in some form around here."

While looking at the discography that was being prepared for this article,
Biafra suddenly yelled "What is Viva La Revolution? Needless to say,
if I haven't heard of it, it probably means it was not supposed to come out.
"Some 'CD connoisseurs' have told me that they think Frankenchrist
sounds a great deal better on CD than it does on vinyl, which shouldn't
surprise me in a way, since I have a habit of trying to squash as much music
onto one disc as possible, and so the last three DKs albums were over
23 minutes a side, and you lose a little bit of loudness when you do
that."

Biafra himself does not own a CD player. "So many of my favorite records are
never going to come out that way: they're just too old or too obscure or
they're from countries where CDs just aren't a practical item, especially for
bands like that."

Among Biafra's collection are items from a trading system he has with a
friend of his up in Portland. "We pile up both the most unusual and the
absolute worst records we find at garage sales and thrift stores, and just
trade stacks to each other. Once he came up with The Singing Cops from
Yakima, Washington, which I guess were these patrolmen, all trying to be a
Sha-Na-Na type band, so there they are, posing in the police locker
room on the back cover, with their sleeves rolled up pseudo-'50s style, and
one of them is even flashing a switchblade, which he'd probably confiscated
from some poor kid he'd probably beaten up earlier in the day.

"Another one I got is by Buzz Martin, the singing logger. He sings all
these vintage country tunes about his logging truck and how much he hates
environmentalists and the forest service; and his chainsaw, things like that.
And on the newer one he has his wife in this ridiculous 'Alice in Wonderland'
queen outfit, singing with him on stage, and his son who has a Herman's
Hermits haircut in the 1970's, singin' a cover of "Rhinestone
Cowboy.'"

There are a couple of Dead Kennedys videos available, one through RAM
video, another released by Target Video, and Biafra briefly appears in the
movie about the band X, The Unheard Music. The DKs also
perform in Urgh! A Music War film, along with Gary Numan, the
Police and others.

"At the time, Miles Copeland was trying to sign
us to IRS, so he was courting us as a possible future item, to rape and
pillage and profit off of. And so we were put on the bill at the Santa Monica
Civic in L.A. Unfortunately, my mic cord got tangled right away when I'd
figured out a way to step on top of one of the movie cameras and jump over
the barrier into the audience. So that didn't happen. We are in the movie,
but A&M forbid our presence on the soundtrack because of our name. Jerry
Moss, the 'M' in A&M, supposedly is a yachting buddy of the Kennedy family
and didn't want anybody called Dead Kennedys on the label.

"That's why Faulty Products was started as well, as a branch of IRS, because
originally Fresh Fruit was supposed to go out through A&M, but A&M
wouldn't touch it, so they created an American arm of the very appropriately
named Faulty Products."

The Dead Kennedys' name did cause its share of trouble too, although
Biafra says, "I've heard unsubstantiated reports through the grapevine that
various third or fourth generation Kennedys actually like the band and
understand the real reasoning behind the name... I was also told that the
Kennedy that died of a drug overdose was into us and maybe even had seen us
live in L.A. at the Whisky. What I heard from one of his friends was that he
was actually quite a talented poet and an aspiring rock shaman. But try as
they might they couldn't get him to kick the drug habit, and plus, of course,
his family wouldn't hear of having a bohemian in their midst, so he was quite
alienated supposedly."

Biafra plans to return to doing music imminently, and has finished an EP with
a one-time only band he calls Lard. The only other music released from
Biafra recently was one cut on a ROIR compilation credited to Bank of
Sodom. According to Biafra, his music "could go in any number of
directions and possibly under several different names." In the meantime, fans
will no doubt also enjoy his next spoken word record, High Priest of
Harmful Matter.